About DAKSH

DAKSH is a Bengaluru-based civil society organisation working at the intersection of public policy, data science, and operations research. Our work focuses on solving the problem of pendency of cases in the Indian legal system. We approach court delays and case pendency from the perspectives of data, efficiency, process, technology, and administration, and have undertaken several initiatives over the past six years.

In 2014, we embarked on the pioneering Rule of Law Project to evaluate judicial performance, study the problem of pendency of cases, and conduct quantitative research on mapping the administration of justice in India. To keep the judicial reforms discourse centred on data, we maintain India’s largest and only public database that enables an in-depth study of courts’ day-to-day functioning.

As part of the Rule of Law Project, we have published the State of the Indian Judiciary (2016) and Approaches to Justice in India (2017), which are widely regarded as ground-breaking in the discourse on judicial reforms. The reports highlight not only our findings, but also contain meticulous analyses by judges, lawyers, data analysts, and public policy experts on various aspects of the judiciary.

In addition, we have worked with the judiciary on numerous projects. Most prominently, we assisted the High Court of Delhi in its pioneering pilot project on ‘Zero Pendency Courts’ (http://delhihighcourt.nic. in/writereaddata/Upload/PublicNotices/PublicNotice_3MRRIN3QTHN.PDF) by creating an application called the Court Log App which provided valuable insights to understand the time spent per hearing, reasons for adjournments and hearing outcomes, among other data points. We also analysed the data from the app and co-authored the report published by the High Court of Delhi on the findings.

To know more about DAKSH’s work, please visit www.dakshindia.org

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